In Ghent, in Flanders, where the past and the future go hand in hand
The new Design Museum in Ghent
The natural starting point for a tour of the city has to be the refurbished Design Museum Gent, nestled in the historic centre. The refurbishment has added a brand-new wing that connects the existing buildings, bringing the total floor area to over 6,500 square metres (of which 3,700 are dedicated to exhibitions) to house a monumental collection of 24,000 pieces spanning seven centuries. The new building serves first and foremost as a ‘civic hall’: an open space, accessible free of charge, designed for people to linger and meet. The centre’s philosophy is summed up in a manifesto that seems to extend to the whole city: ‘Everything is designed. Everything can be redesigned’. Upon entering, the permanent collection curated by Evelien Bracke (Collection: Models from the Past for the Future) unveils 500 masterpieces, 40 per cent of which have never before been seen by the public, orchestrating a lively dialogue between icons such as Alvar Aalto, Victor Horta and Charles & Ray Eames and contemporary installations organised around five key concepts: replication, comfort, migration, folds and connections. A little further on, the exhibition *Public Matter(s): Design and Democracy* (open until April 2027) demonstrates how a chair or a pavement can be political tools just as much as a ballot box.
